We will watch each other age

in front of cameras, in newsprint,

a public decay. It's already started.

Look at my new sway;

my body seems more ample

among the miniature shampoos,

the thin rectangles of wrapped soaps.

Look at the pale shifting of my skin

under the red eye of the ticking heat lamp.

And I've noticed your hair's gone white,

your face loosening.

                 I'm shocked

how can you still appear--

not televised, not some public memory

of the two of us swimming valiantly--

but the intimacy of teeth,

              breath and breathing.

And I carry you sometimes

              for a day or two,

like a bird hidden in a pocket

               and I imagine

that you know how I live.

     And while the bird shifts

and rustles and keeps one wet eye

on my life, I am more purposeful,

I stride.

     But today you see me here naked
standing in front of this hotel mirror.

You are someone who knew me before
I was the world's collective joke

about cigars, thongs, stained dresses,
when I was a girl named Monica.

I miss her much more than I miss you.